


Bruises

by osprey_archer



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Community: hc_bingo, F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-15
Updated: 2012-10-15
Packaged: 2017-11-16 09:48:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/538176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/osprey_archer/pseuds/osprey_archer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Branson, what happened to your wrist?”</i>
</p><p> </p><p>  <i>Branson drew back his hand as if bitten, and rolled down his sleeve. Motor oil streaked the clean white cotton. “I didn’t mean for you to see it,” he said, grabbing for a rag to wipe his shirt. No, that would just smudge the oil more.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Bruises

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to asakiyume for betaing!

“Branson, what happened to your wrist?”

Branson drew back his hand as if bitten, and rolled down his sleeve. Motor oil streaked the clean white cotton. “I didn’t mean for you to see it,” he said, grabbing for a rag to wipe his shirt. No, that would just smudge the oil more.

Sybil was staring at him, puzzled. He leaned in toward the engine, half-hiding under the bonnet. “It’s nothing, anyway,” he said.

The Renault rocked slightly as she leaned against it to look in at him. “Does it hurt?”

“No, it’s nothing,” he said again. “Only I dropped a wrench – ” he began, and stopped. He had promised himself he would never lie to her.

And how could he be less brave than she was? She had told him when Lieutenant Rowley had grabbed her on her rounds – after Rowley had left Downton, at any rate. “To protect you from your own chivalry,” Sybil had explained, with the blithe arch willingness to order other people’s lives (Branson’s, in particular) that made him want to rage against the pretensions of the upper classes, and kiss her, both at once.

It wasn’t a comfortable feeling, but it was the sort of discomfort he enjoyed: the constructive kind, the sort that was part of building a new and better world.

Shame and mortification, on the other hand, were a miserable sort of discomfort. He wished she hadn’t seen the bruises. “It doesn’t much matter, Lady Sybil,” he said, and swallowed, and continued, “The motor broke down on the way to the station. Sir Richard Carlisle wasn’t best pleased.” He gave a little shrug, as if that would show he didn’t care. “I suppose he thought it would speed repairs.”

A fleeting horror widened her eyes. Branson’s face heated, and he gave great attention to wiping the grease off his hands. “Of course that only slowed things up,” he said, so she’d know he hadn’t just took it. She’d doused Rowley with a pitcher of water she’d had to hand. “I got him to the station quite late.” 

Sybil traced the splotched yellow bruises. _She’s seen far worse_ , Branson reminded himself, but he wanted to pull his hand away. She shouldn’t have to see something so ugly on him.

Perhaps Sybil felt his hand flinch, because she moved her hand from his wrist and lightly twined her fingers with his. “You should complain to Papa,” she said.

“No,” he said at once, and drew his hand away; and was surprised at his own rejection, even revulsion, toward the idea. It was the old schoolboy certainty that it was a far greater shame to be a tattletale than a bully, because a real man swallowed pain like the Spartan boy who let a fox chew up his insides without ever making a peep. “It’d just make trouble, anyway.”

“ _I_ could tell Papa,” she suggested. 

Branson shook his head. She frowned. “He ought to know,” she insisted. 

“He ought to have known about Rowley too, don’t you think?” Branson said. 

“Yes, but that was…” She stopped. “I suppose they’re each quite mortifying to explain, in their own way.” A lovely passionate flush rose in her cheeks. “Isn’t it ridiculous that _we_ should be embarrassed, when they have no shame for behaving badly?”

He hadn’t seen it quite that way before. “Yes,” he agreed tentatively, and hearing himself say it strengthened his agreement. That was one of the things he loved about her, that she could help him see things he hadn’t seen before – and that he could do the same for her. “Yes, you’re quite right,” he said, and touched her hand again. “I should...”

She squeezed his fingers. For a moment he seemed to soar on Elysian wings above the petty concerns of society: to envision himself setting out the wrongs of Sir Richard Carlisle, standing in Lord Grantham’s library and – no.

He could not imagine himself saying _Dear feudal protector, please avenge the wrong yon knight has inflicted upon me,_ or whatever the more modern variant would be. Not that changing the words would make it modern: the whole scene would remain a feudal relic. He would rather let the injustice stand than play a part in that humiliating tableau.

“...I should, but I can’t,” he finished. 

She sighed. “Still. I wish Papa could know what sort of man Mary is marrying.” For a moment Sybil’s gaze shifted from Branson, staring narrow-eyed into an unpleasant future, and her brows drew together in a frown. “ _How_ can she marry Sir Richard Carlisle?”

Branson only shook his head. “She loves him, perhaps?”

Sybil rubbed a thumb absently over his bruised wrist. It hurt, a little, yet pleasurably so. “No, she can scarcely stand him. I can’t make it out.”

Branson thought most of Lady Mary’s actions unaccountable, though he liked her anyway for her steady affection for Sybil. And that liking forced him to say, “Perhaps you should tell Lady Mary..." He hesitated, searching for words. "...what sort of man she’s marrying.” 

Sybil focused on his face again. “Yes,” she said, with sudden decision. “I’ll tell her in confidence; I needn’t even tell her who Sir Richard injured.” 

Branson was embarrassed. “It’s hardly an injury.” 

“Not for you, perhaps, but Mary’s not used to bruises,” Sybil replied, and sighed again. “I _wish_ I could tell Papa. Perhaps he’d forbid the match.”

“It would just set her heart on it more if Lord Grantham forbid it,” Branson said.

Sybil smiled. “Yes; she’s like me in that regard,” she said, and lifted his hand, her strong slender fingers firm on his skin, and pressed her lips to his bruised wrist.

His heart beat. _Does this mean you’ll have me?_ he wanted to ask; but he had promised not to ask again, and they could not build a new world on broken promises. He caught his lip between his teeth so he couldn’t speak. She looked up at him, lips on his wrist. Her gaze caught on his bitten lip, and a flush suffused her cheeks again.

“I only wish he’d hit me in the face,” Branson teased.

And she laughed, and smacked him lightly on the shoulder; and despite everything, he was glad enough for the wrist.


End file.
